![]() Natali said he was frequently working while hungry and "depleted of energy," often spending an hour or more searching for a safe place to park and sleep each night, and that he could feel the pressure to keep his job performance high while working so many hours. "It was so painstakingly tiring to constantly be on alert 24/7." "It was awful and wonderful at the same time," said Natali, reflecting on the experience. In order to hit his goals, Natali picked up extra hours and began working between 60 and 80 hours every week, so he could get lots of overtime pay. He continued to funnel between $4,000 and $6,000 from his paychecks every month into his debts, which eventually led him to pay them off entirely by his one-year goal. He meticulously tracked every expense, from trips to the gas station to coffee dates, keeping necessary costs like his food bill as low as he possibly could. To manage paying off his student loans in just a year, Natali knew he had to save his money aggressively - even while living in the van. ![]() And meanwhile I was peeing in a bottle and ducking under curtains being held up by magnets so nobody would see me and yeah, it was not sexy at all." 2. "I mean, they had like … a shower and toilets and all that stuff. "I remember feeling like the Instagram photos that other people were posting of their vans were doing van life a disservice because I was like, Why is this so hard?," said Natali. Even after the updates, it was anything but glamorous - with multiple open holes that let hot air seep in during the day and cold air during the night. ![]() Natali took the challenge, and put around $1,400 into turning the van into a livable home. Upon hearing Natali's ideas for lowering his overhead, a family member gifted him the van on the condition that he was actually going to live in it. He lived in his van to keep housing costs lowĪfter running through the numbers over the phone with a financially savvy friend, Natali considered buying a van to live in and save on rent. Here are the three things Natali did that allowed him to pay off $59,000 in just one year.ġ. Since February, he's had his own place.īut the skills he learned while saving under such extreme circumstances has allowed him to continue maxing out his Roth IRA and padding his portfolio while he grows his business. After he paid off his loans, he moved into a house with several roommates that allowed him to continue his hefty savings. "It's a great experience to live in a van, and you'll learn a lot about yourself - but the extremism? I don't know." "I don't know if I'd recommend van life for everyone," he said. Looking back on his decisions, Natali -who started investing the majority of his income after paying off his loans and now works as a wealth performance coach with a net worth over $200,000 at age 25 - recognizes that his personal methods for saving as much money as he does are extremely drastic, and not something that most people could or should do. A year later, he had met his goal and was debt-free. He set a goal to pay it off in just one year, but his job as a software engineer for the Department of Defense paid $64,638 per year - only slightly more than his total loan balance. So he took drastic measures, reducing his cost of living so severely that he could devote the bulk of his income to loan payments. He was "extremely motivated" to pay the loans off quickly, he said. "I hated the feeling of just knowing that my money was being forced to go somewhere that I really didn't want it to," said Natali. Natali had five direct loans, and three of them were unsubsidized with interest rates ranging from 4.5% to 8.5%. Even with that, his software engineering degree had still cost him just under $59,000 when he graduated. Nickolas Natali graduated college a year early, hoping to reduce the amount of student loans he'd owe at the end. By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from InsiderĪs well as other partner offers and accept our
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